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Benjamin Stewart

@bstewdlh.bsky.social
476 followers 596 following 423 posts

ecology & ritual, science & religion, Duluth & Two Harbors, fat tires & fast bikes; liturgy professor @LSTC; Emory PhD; ELCA pastor; north shore of Lake Superior

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Reposted by Benjamin Stewart
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
According to the International Energy Agency, total global investment in solar energy (including both rooftop solar and utility-scale projects) was less than half of this figure, despite our dire ecological situation
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Bring Me The News @bringmethenews.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"The point is that we’re not even at the peak yet, and almost every single forecast has this El Niño strengthening to the point of breaking the records," writes Sven Sundgaard. bringmethenews.com/minnesota-weathe…
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Tyler King @tyleraking.com · 17/09/2026
“A senior executive at Microsoft said A.I. systems built on the work of others will be seen as ‘an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions’ and possibly the greatest robbery of labor in human history, according to court documents unredacted Thursday in an ongoing Manhattan lawsuit.”
orlandosentinel.com
Docs in A.I. copyright suit reveal startling admission by Microsoft exec over ‘astonishing theft’
The admission appeared in a newly unredacted filing in the landmark copyright infringement legal battle playing out between newspapers like the Orlando Sentinel and tech companies Microsoft and OpenAI...
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BikeMN @bikemn.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
Exciting to see such a long advocated for dream become a reality! www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
mprnews.org
After 30 years, Minnesota's longest paved bike path is finally finished
The Mesabi Trail cuts a 165-mile path across northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. Officials will celebrate the trail’s completion with a ribbon cutting Tuesday in Tower.
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Puff the Magic Hater @mskellymhayes.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"We grieve the worlds we've known and what it felt like to live in them, and people are part of that. We grieve the fact that someone or something that accompanied us through the world will no longer accompany us through whatever comes next." organizingmythoughts.org/grief-is-not...
“We often misunderstand something fundamental when we imagine people are simply grieving a person they believed to be wholly good.

Often, they are grieving a kind of accompaniment.

They are grieving the way someone's music, art, words, performances, or ideas helped carry them through the world ... They are grieving a bedroom they sat in twenty-five years ago, listening to the same album over and over, or a book that knocked down walls when they were nineteen. They are grieving nights spent with friends they no longer know and conversations they can barely remember. They are grieving their own proximity to death, as marked by the disappearance of someone whose presence in the world always seemed continuous with their own, until it wasn't.” - Kelly Hayes
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
A poem by St Wendell Berry, especially poignant this season, “Enriching the Earth”
ENRICHING THE EARTH
To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds of winter grains and of various legumes, their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal and the decay of the growth of past seasons and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth, not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness and a delight to the air, and my days do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service, for when the will fails so do the hands and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves, entering the earth. And so what was heaviest and most mute is at last raised up into song.
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Wow - the same principle that helped establish the theory continental drift also can spot a fake made of the earth
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Reposted by Benjamin Stewart
The New Yorker @newyorker.com · 31/08/2026
Today's Daily Cartoon, by Ellen Liebenthal.
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Highway 61 (re)visited this morning pedestrians have right of way ✊🐻
Gorgy black bear crossing Highway 61 south of Two Harbors MN this morning
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Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Part of me wonders if all the marketing puff about super-intelligent AIs is an attempt to make us feel like we’re living in the future and are the protagonists of a sci-fi drama, so we don’t notice that 2026 is actually pretty rubbish and not futuristic at all
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Anne Lutz Fernandez @lutzfernandez.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
This is a great piece. The role of gender in building, overbuilding, and cementing car culture in America is underdiscussed.
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Unicorn Riot @unicornriot.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
BREAKING: Enbridge’s aging Line 5 pipeline is spilling natural gas liquids in northern Wisconsin. The rupture occurred just east of the Bad River Reservation near Lake Superior on August 25, 2026. According to Enbridge, an unoccupied semi-truck rolled into an excavation site and struck the pipeline.
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Dun Jun @clustertuck.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
RIP Dolly Parton ❤️ Here's a lovely Dolly story: We worked together on "Transamerica." She told me that the bible passage that used to puzzle her the most was, "the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men." She said, "How the heck do you sin against the Holy Ghost, and-
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Anthony Moser @anthonymoser.com · 25/08/2026
That means *we have to set the strong social expectation first.* You must vaccinate to enroll. And then tell the story with it: to protect each other, and ourselves. The science is for people who want to understand how we know, not persuading people who reject the premise
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
More than 10x the deaths of 9/11
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Excellent explainer w/ really interesting animations on the recent Boundary Waters fires - “perfect storm” of factors (incl climate change) leading to this outbreak
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Ross Murray @inlayterms.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The diversity in nature is astounding. So stop trying to stamp it out in humanity.
smithsonianmag.com
An 'Extremely Rare' Half-Male, Half-Female Bird Temporarily Took Up Residence Outside of Chicago
The unusual-looking bobolink is what's called a bilateral gynandromorph. The bird behaved like a male, eventually wooing a mate and raising fledglings
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Jonathan M. Katz @katz.theracket.news · 25/08/2026
I went to look at what Hasan Piker’s latest on the stream, and the taking out of context is worse than I suspected. He was sympathetically answering a question from an Anti-Zionist Jewish listener frustrated with how hard it is to convince his Reform congregation to distance itself from Israel …
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Micah @rincewind.run · 24/08/2026
the current supreme court continues to signal that the only way forward for democratic self-governance in the united states of america is to dismantle its power through court expansion or other major structural reforms
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The Fact of Other Minds Stan Account @csilverandgold.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Idk it’s just like… maybe the whole story is giving and receiving good information. Maybe that’s the whole ballgame. Idk guys what if all of human history is the process of us coming to know ourselves as a species? What about that? What then huh?
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
This evening’s teacher in my Minnesota Master Naturalist training at Wolf Ridge ELC - such a fun program w/ great people & fellow critters
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Friends of the Boundary Waters @bwca.bsky.social · 07/08/2026
We’re lucky to have a place like this right here in Minnesota. 🌲💙 📸 Dom Ricci
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Travis Norvell @pedalingpastor.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
making sure the evening crowd see this great piece by @briankaylor.bsky.social on illegal activities by the US govt. spying and tracking houses of worship in the Twin Cities. publicwitness.wordandway.org/p/in-worship...
publicwitness.wordandway.org
In Worship and in Court, Churches Respond to DHS Spying in Their Buildings
At the start of worship on Sunday morning (Aug. 16), Rev. Cody Sanders gave an announcement that’s not what he typically offers: the congregation had been one of several churches “targeted by undercov...
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mitchell atencio (he·him·his) @mitchellatencio.com · 16/08/2026
Never had a term for it, but this strategy is exactly what a lot of conservative-to-fundamentalist evangelical positions are staked on. I noticed it first with climate, then evolution.
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Jason Read @jasonread.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
In contemporary fascism imagined threats to "in groups" are always taken more seriously than actual threats to "out groups." www.unemployednegativity.com/2023/07/maki...
unemployednegativity.com
Making Up a Guy to Get Mad At: The (Completely) Imaginary Institution of Society
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
What's called 'wokism' is nothing more or less than the working out across a wide cultural front of the implications of the advent of a multiracial democracy in the United States for the first time after 1965.
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Christian Century @christiancentury.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
“This is the first time in history that Christians have tried to adopt a feast ecumenically.” – @kimbelcher.bsky.social, in an interview by Steve Thorngate about the Feast of Creation in Christ www.christiancentury.org/interviews/f...
christiancentury.org
A feast day for the whole church
“The Feast of Creation in Christ names our need to celebrate God’s saving work in creation,” says liturgical theologian Kimberly Belcher, “and to do so...
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David Roberts @volts.wtf · 06/08/2026
In July, on ABC, CBS, and NBC, there were 194 segments on the extreme heat waves rolling across the US. Number that mentioned climate change: 0.
mediamatters.org
ABC, CBS, and NBC aired nearly 200 segments about three U.S. heat events without mentioning climate change
From late June through July, successive heat waves swept across large portions of the United States, breaking temperature records and placing more than 100 million people at a time under heat alerts. ...
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 06/08/2026
That’s enough to fund 11 years worth of $2000 monthly housing vouchers for all 5300 individuals facing homelessness in DC right now.
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Suw @suw.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Crops grown underneath solar panels produce more, require less water and are more resistant to extreme weather, even during a hot, dry summer. We need agrivoltaics to be rolled out asap, for both the electricity and the better growing conditions. microgridmedia.com/solar-panels...
microgridmedia.com
Solar Panels Are Helping Crops Grow Better, Global Studies Show - Microgrid Media
For farmers worried about losing land to solar energy, new research brings surprising news: many crops actually produce more food when grown beneath solar
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Leah Payne @drleahpayne.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
“Brian Doerksen gave evangelicalism its soundtrack but not its current theology” - Yours Truly on how the “Jesus is my boyfriend” sounds of Doerksen & the Vineyard gave way to the rock ‘em sock ‘em militarism of top-selling worship music today: religionnews.com/2026/07/30/b...
religionnews.com
Brian Doerksen gave evangelicalism its soundtrack but not its current theology
(RNS) — Today's evangelical worship culture often reflects a very different vision of God than the one Doerksen’s songs proclaimed.
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Matthew Sheffield @matthew.flux.community · 29/07/2026
A periodic reminder that Donald Trump is a vulgarian, not a populist, and that you help him greatly by falsely labeling his oligarch-created agenda as "populist."
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Jean Allen @jeanallen.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Oh no, itd end AMERICAN DEMOCRACY? the system where 40 million people elect half the senate and 300 million the other half? The one where we indirectly elect the executive, who has won despite not winning the popular vote twice in 25 years, who then appoints life long judges who really legislate????
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Profoundly moving interview of @gillianbrockell.com at 34m in this podcast. Inshallah, these are the stories we’ll tell at the hearings for prosecution and reparations
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Lots of Duluth city councilors overruling their constituents tonight and saying “sue us.” Actually kinda shocking.
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Barrett Chase @barrettchase.duluthnewstribune.com · 26/07/2026
The obvious choice for fried chicken. #dultuh #duluthmn #jcpenney #millerhillmall #history #seventies
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Reading this poignant post in dialog w/ @joriegraham.bsky.social’s “I Catch Sight of the Now,” beautifully read on the recent New Yorker poetry podcast podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...
podcasts.apple.com
Richard Siken Reads Jorie Graham
Podcast Episode · The New Yorker: Poetry · June 24 · 42m
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Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
Villanova University has established the Pope Leo XIV Sustainability Medal, a new international honor that will recognize outstanding leadership in sustainability and integral human development. www.villanova.edu/university/s...
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Zeke Hausfather @zekehausfather.com · 17/07/2026
Climate change does not cause wildfires, but hot and dry conditions make them much more likely to spread. In Canada, 9 of the 10 worst wildfire years were both dryer and hotter than normal. And these fires are burning in areas that were historically not managed or suppressed.
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Fubar 🇨🇦 @captainfubar.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
This is the future of climate change denial as it becomes more difficult to ignore, it'll just be endless scapegoating
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MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
"The myth of technological and political and social inevitability is a powerful tranquilizer of the conscience. Its service is to remove responsibility from the shoulders of everyone who truly believes in it." —Joseph Weizenbaum
thereader.mitpress.mit.edu
Can the Classroom Ever Be Automated?
Long before AI, teaching machines promised to make education more efficient. Their forgotten history reveals why that dream keeps falling short.
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100% @100percent.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
This photo isn’t edited—it’s an image of the BWCA as 55,000 acres burns. Our way of life in MN is being forced to change because of the climate crisis. So why aren’t we holding Big Oil accountable? We need to pass a Climate Superfund and force Big Oil to pay to clean up their mess.
photo of the boundary waters on fire with text “big oil should pay for this”
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Rusty Mehlberg @wxmanmehlberg.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
The bad news is that a wind direction shift and passing cold front has allowed the wildfire smoke from the Boundary Waters region to cover nearly all of the Northland. It is bad...it is very bad...it is the worst wildfire smoke readings EVER in Minnesota. This continues the next several days.
Air quality readings across the Northland just after 1 p.m. on July 15, 2026, shows "hazardous" levels for the North Shore, Twin Ports, northwest Wisconsin, and Upper Peninsula regions.  It is "very unhealthy" for nearly the rest of the region, or at least "unhealthy".  International Falls and nearby areas are not being impacted by the wildfire smoke at this time.According to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the three highest readings for fire particle concentration air quality concerns, typically associated with wildfire smoke and smog, measured in their history were in the Northland the morning of July 15, 2026.  The highest was 617.8 PM 2.5 in West Duluth, 576.3 PM 2.5 in Grand Portage, and 513.3 PM 2.5 near downtown Duluth.The forecasted air quality levels in the Northland for Thursday, July 16, 2026, is likely to be "very unhealthy" for nearly all locations. It is likely to go back and forth between "unhealthy" and "hazardous" readings through the day.As a result of the ongoing wildfire smoke and very poor air quality levels, an Air Quality Alert continues across the entire Northland. It is scheduled to expire at the earliest for northwest Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula by the afternoon of Thursday, July 16, 2026, and for northeast Minnesota by the afternoon of Friday, July 17, 2026. It is also possible, and possibly likely, to be extended for several areas.
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Dan "Mr. Bones and Me" Greene @dmgreene.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
The reason they want to automate education is the same reason why we know how to fix it: what makes for "good education" hasn't really changed in 100 years. Small classes, high contact. Lots of movement around the edges but this basic proposition is expensive and labor intensive!
aaup.org
What Does AI Do?
The economic and political problems of “cost disease” in education have created a powerful incentive for the adoption of AI.
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
I remember a study that showed that people w/ reactionary politics struggled to comprehend complex causality. They were ‘normal’ when understanding mono-factor causality
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
"Since 1915, the principal supporter of daylight saving in the US has been the Chamber of Commerce on behalf of small business & retailers... The Chamber understood that if you give workers more sunlight at the end of the day they'll stop & shop on their way home" www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/tak...
wnycstudios.org
Who Really Benefits from Daylight Saving Time? | The Takeaway | WNYC Studios
Most Americans will "spring forward" this weekend and lose an hour to daylight saving time. But daylight saving is hardly standardized in the United States, much less the world. In fa...
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
In 1986, under Reagan, the U.S. lengthened DST from 6 months to 7. At Congressional hearings the year before... the golf industry told lawmakers that the one additional month of daylight saving was “worth $200 million in additional sales of golf clubs and greens fees.” qz.com/daylight-sav...
qz.com
The origin of Daylight Saving Time is all about business — not farmers
Farmers actually hated Daylight Saving Time. But it was and always has been good for one thing: selling stuff
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Benjamin Stewart @bstewdlh.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Appreciate the @duluthnews.bsky.social putting the most salient fact in the headline: the climate emergency is here www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/local/n...
duluthnewstribune.com
Heat wave gripping Northland driven by climate change
“This temperature would be very difficult to encounter in a world without climate change — not necessarily impossible, just highly unlikely,” according to Climate Central.
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Hypervisible @hypervisible.blacksky.app · 13/07/2026
“According to the lawsuit, the team working on MAYA [the clinic’s ai assistant] deleted unflattering test results, mischaracterized the tool’s abilities, and made decisions that put data security in jeopardy.”
futurism.com
Lawsuit Claims the Mayo Clinic's Use of AI Is Butchering Patient Care
A former director at the Mayo Clinic claims she was fired in retaliation for reporting the network's horribly inaccurate AI tools.
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Kevin Elliott @kjephd.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
It's just populism. Yglesias & Silver occupy inherently insecure & status-ambiguous positions in the sociopolitical ether, making skepticism of credentials a pragmatic position that simultaneously bolsters their status, immunizes them from expert critique, & opens new lines of critique for them.
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